


(i need a) touch up

by isozyme



Series: this is love in the modern way [2]
Category: The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Feminization, Gender issues for everyone!, Gentle Dom Tony Stark, Let’s see how long can we go without talking about it before things go sideways!, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Service Top, Sub Steve Rogers, Under-negotiated Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-19 02:10:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16525280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isozyme/pseuds/isozyme
Summary: Manicures are a girl thing.  Not to Tony, exactly; taking care of his body is neutral, and he’s always liked his creature comforts.  But to Steve, nail care is definitely a girl thing.And Steve likes girl things on Tony, but —Start slow, Stark,Tony thinks, and takes a deep breath.“Give me your hand, sugar,” Tony suggests, already pulling one of Steve’s big hands into his lap.  He turns it over, digging both thumbs into the meat of Steve’s palm and rubbing at the sore muscles there.  Steve’s eyes flutter shut.  “That feels good, doesn’t it?”A sequel to thegirl with the modern face.   What it says on the tin: Tony discovers they’re both very into Steve in femme things, but it’s a touchy subject for hyper-masculine Captain America.





	(i need a) touch up

**Author's Note:**

> The sex-only sequel everyone asked for! This probably won’t stand alone particularly well. However, if you’re just here for feminization kink on Steve, the basics: Tony’s secret identity in this AU isn’t Iron Man, it’s Rescue, and Rescue is a woman. A very uptight Steve Rogers had some trouble with that at first, but they’ve worked it out.
> 
> Title from [Touch Up by Mother Mother.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiwCWwekbsc)

It starts normally.  Almost normally.  Tony’s just had a hard day, and he’s taking some Me Time.  Today, that’s giving himself a manicure — no polish, he chips it horrendously in the workshop, just a file and buff.

Music drives away in the background of the den.  He picked this room in part because it would be the second or third place people looked for him instead of the first, and because it has good acoustics.  Glass and steel is lovely, but modern minimalist architecture makes music sound like shit.

Tony doesn’t get up when the rest of the team gets back and starts rattling around downstairs.  He hears Thor yelling at the coffee machine, again, and considers making the damn thing voice-activated.  He’s been resisting; after all, a Mr. Coffee is at its core an unimprovable object.  It doesn’t look like much, it does drip coffee and nothing else, but it has one circuit, one button, and it doesn’t break.   Tony aspires to make machines with the hideous, unflagging elegance of the Mr. Coffee.

The Avengers quiet down and spread through the mansion.  It’s peaceful until Steve raps softly on the open doorframe.

Tony grins up at him, and Steve comes the rest of the way into the den.  Then he shuts the door behind him and locks it.  Steve is in his uniform, freshly post-mission, and apparently feeling frisky.

Tony beckons him over, prompting Steve to sit by on the couch while he finishes.  Steve leans into his side a little, smelling like char and sweaty leather.

“We missed you out there,” Steve grumbles.

“Board meetings are, alas, sometimes unskippable.”  Unskippable and awful.  Tony doesn’t want to hear another word about military contracts with respect to the Rescue suit, not now and not ever.  He’s already given them some of the data handling and user interface software, but they always want more.

“How was it?”

“Bad enough that I’m taking the time to do my nails myself instead of waiting for Denise at the salon next week.”

“I’ll wait while you finish up, then,” Steve says.

Steve watches Tony’s hands with the rapt attention he usually saves for learning new martial arts.  Tony puts the file down on the polished tabletop with a click, then runs the pad of his finger over the ends of his nails, feeling for rough edges.  There’s a burr on one thumbnail, so he files that down, there, perfect.  Steve is still staring.

Tony stretches his fingers out and switches to buffing.  Steve’s breath puffs warm over Tony’s neck, then he hooks his chin over Tony’s shoulder.

Oh, interesting, this might be a sex thing.  Tony loves discovering Steve’s sex things.  There was fucking as Rescue with the suit on, which was excellent, and the time Steve had covered Tony’s mouth and fucked him silent, and, obviously, Steve’s lipstick fascination.  Tony needs to do a test run of having _Steve_ put the lipstick on him. He would teach Steve how to pick out a shade and apply it to Tony’s mouth, careful, neat, all of Steve’s incredible fine motor skills focused on Tony.  Then Tony would blow him with it on.  Steve would _love_ that, watching his handiwork get messier and messier as Tony worked him over.

That’s a later thought.  A delicious later thought, true, but right now Steve is looking at Tony’s manicure set like it holds the secrets of the universe.

“I could paint my nails, if you like,” Tony offers.

Steve jumps a little.  This is the tricky part; getting Steve to think about what he wants, what will make him happy, without running into one of the walls in his head.  Once Steve has decided something will be good he puts his head down and goes for it, but he has to get there first.

Tony’d like to touch Steve, so he does, tracing up and down one of the seams in Steve’s uniform.  It’s worth it, finding the things that Steve likes.  It makes him so happy, when something feels nice instead of hurting — it tears Tony’s heart up anew every time Steve looks at him in desperate surprise.  He wants to give the man _everything_.

Tony makes a show of examining the nails of his other hand.  “Not sure what color would be nice.”

He pauses, but Steve doesn’t take the opportunity to suggest something.  Instead Steve is looking at his own hands.

That doesn’t fit the model Tony was building in his head.  If Steve was into nail polish on Tony he’d be looking at Tony, or, if it was a something he wanted a lot, staring a hole in the floor.  Not contemplating his own fingers, picking at the dirt ground into his cuticles, a little sad and wistful.

Steve’s hands are always beat half to death.  Tony’s watched him climb sheer walls by digging his fingers into the concrete like its clay.  He heals fast, but then he punches something again and it’s back to square one: three jammed knuckles and a broken thumbnail.

Manicures are a girl thing.  Not to Tony, exactly; taking care of his body is neutral, and he’s always liked his creature comforts.  But to Steve, nail care is _definitely_ a girl thing.

And Steve likes girl things on _Tony_ , but —

 _Start slow, Stark_ , Tony thinks, and takes a deep breath.

“Give me your hand, sugar,” Tony suggests, already pulling one of Steve’s big hands into his lap.  He turns it over, digging both thumbs into the meat of Steve’s palm and rubbing at the sore muscles there.  Steve’s eyes flutter shut.  “That feels good, doesn’t it?”

“It really does,” Steve says, and he’s smiling, eyes closed, not thinking about it too much, that’s positive.

“Look at you, you’re a mess,” Tony tuts.  Steve’s rough and calloused all over.  No wonder Tony keeps finding pulls in his nice silks; Steve’s palms are like sandpaper.  His nails are strong and straight, good starting materials, but, dear Lord, is he keeping them short by _biting_ them?  Did people in the forties not have nail clippers?  Do nail clippers not work on super-fingers?

Steve cracks an eye open, grin tugging on his mouth.  “Are you going to do something about it, or sit here insulting me all day?”

Tony licks his lips.  “You have lovely hands,” he says.  It’s true; he loves Steve’s hands.

“Tony,” Steve says roughly, “I know your judging face, and that’s it.”

“I could, um — ” Tony pauses, because he’s in dangerous waters here.  Tony’s pretty sure Steve would like it, Steve’s gotten as close as he ever does to asking for something straight out — “do a little work with these.  File here and there, attend to whatever terrible things you’ve been doing to these cuticles, _Steven_ , who raised you, honestly?  Smooth everything out.  No polish, okay?  I promise.  It’ll be nice.”

Steve thinks for a moment, then nods.

“Where do you want me?” Steve asks, offering both hands to Tony.

The bottom drops out of Tony’s world a little, hearing Steve go pliant just like that, but he guides Steve around to the other side of the low table, spreading his big hands flat against it.

“Like this?” Steve asks.

“Just like that.”

Tony has a bowl of warm water out already, scented with rose petals, because, look, it was a bad meeting, he wanted rose petals.  Now Steve gets rose petals.  He dips Steve’s fingers and then scrubs all over his hands with a stiff-bristled brush.  There’s dirt ground into his knuckles, in the crescents of his nails and between his fingers, places where brisk hand washing doesn’t reach.   _Men_ , Tony thinks, and suppresses a smile.  Steve squirms a little as the brush tickles him.

Steve tracks all of Tony’s motions, lets him pat him dry with a soft towel, sighs as Tony goes back to massaging him thoroughly, fingertips to elbows.

Tony takes a file to Steve after that, and falls into the trance of fixing things.  It’s not so different from working the lathe or polishing optical lenses with fine diamond grit until they gleam.  He likes, maybe more than is normal, having Steve under his hands like one of his creations.  His.  _Tony’s_.  He’s going to make Steve perfect, just like every other thing he’s invented.  And Steve is going to sit still and let him.

He finishes by rubbing oil around Steve’s nail beds.  “There.  All pretty, darling,” he murmurs, then stiffens when he hears himself.  Steve isn’t going to like that adjective.  He’s never called Steve pretty before.  He keeps that thought to _himself_.  It just slipped out.  Stupid, God, he has to get ahold of himself before Steve socks him in the nose and leaves forever.

But when he looks up Steve is just blushing faintly, his pupils a little more dilated than the softly-lit room warrants.

“Yeah?” Steve asks, and it’s like Tony’s put him under some kind of spell.  Everything about the moment is heady and delicate.  Tony feels warm all the way down to his groin.

“Of course,” Tony says, and smiles.  “Come back over here.”

Steve slides back onto the couch, sweet as pie, and if that isn’t a contrast to Steve’s usual granite exterior Tony’s doesn’t know what is.

“I feel…smooth,” Steve says, scratching his nails lightly along Tony’s jaw so he can feel for himself.  Tony turns his head, presses his lips into Steve’s palm.

“You like smooth?”

“I — I think — I’m not sure.  I liked you doing it.  Will anyone notice?  Anyone but you?”

Not an exhibitionism thing, then.  When they do whatever this is — if they keep doing this — it’ll just be for the two of them.  Tony femmes up to put people on edge; he likes them fucking unsettled, a little cowed that he’s so powerful he can be as camp as he wants and still be taken seriously.  Tony wears makeup like armor.  For Steve it seems like the opposite.  Taking armor off.

Tony shakes his head and Steve relaxes.  “People don’t see what they’re not looking for.  And you’re going to mess them up again straight away.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.”

“But all your hard work,” Steve protests.

“That wasn’t the point.  Not at all,” Tony says softly.

He kisses Steve’s mouth then.  Steve puts his soft hands in Tony’s hair, rubbing small circles behind Tony’s ear.  

“Don’t call me pretty in public,” Steve says, a little of the familiar steel back in his voice.  “I don’t want people to think —“

“Anything you want,” Tony breathes into his mouth, and he knows Steve is thinking of coming back to the tenuous thing they found here.  They’re going to do this again.  It’s half enticing, half terrifying.  Tony buries himself in Steve’s mouth, pressing a knee between his thighs.  They’re going end up fucking on the couch if Tony doesn’t slow them down soon.  He doesn’t plan on putting the brakes on at all.

***

The next time, Tony decides to do it on purpose.

Steve’s schedule is like clockwork; barring emergencies he leaves for a run at six, comes back at seven, and is out of the shower by seven fifteen.  With sufficient bribery Tony can keep him in bed a little longer, but it’s not like Tony’s schedule is much less punishing.  He still has a double life to lead, after all.  Stark Industries takes a lot of overseas business these days so Tony can schedule conference calls in the wee hours of the morning.

So Tony’s up, caffeinated, and mostly confident about his plan by the time Steve is done with his shower.  He needs Steve in the bathroom for his plan, and thinks it’ll be easier without a location change.  The few things he needs are already stocked — all that’s left is Steve.

When Tony comes into the bathroom Steve’s in the middle of brushing his teeth.

Steve’s got a towel wrapped around his waist and nothing else.  Tony sits down in the chair by the tub and stretches his legs out, hooking one ankle over the other, appreciating the view.  Steve raises an eyebrow at him in the mirror, but keeps on brushing.

The world expected that Steve would want to cling to the past, but the man takes unreasonable delight in gadgets, up to and including his electric toothbrush that beeps every time he’s supposed to switch mouth zones.  Tony tries not to be impatient.

Steve even has the subscription plan that sends replacement bristles every three months.

Finally, Steve spits into the sink.  “What is it?  You’re being awfully coy.”

“I want you to let me shave your legs,” Tony says, trying to hide how nervous he is.  He tips his chin up and regards Steve through his lashes.

“Why?” Steve asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

It was so easy when Tony gave him a manicure, Tony thinks, an edge of panic welling up in his chest.  But that was natural, almost an accident how Steve walked in on him.  Now Tony’s made it different, purposeful.

Tony is brave.  He’s a superhero.  He grabs missiles and chucks them back at the people firing them for a living.  He swallows.  “Because it’s a thing that women do.  And I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m — I’m not like you, Tony,” Steve says haltingly.  That’s true — Steve doesn’t spend a good chunk of his life wearing a secret identity that’s a woman.

“No, baby, I’m a hedonist, a cross-dresser, and an attention whore.  You, well, you use three-in-one shampoo-conditioner-bodywash.”

“It’s all soap,” Steve grumbles.  “Soap is the same.”

“It is not and you know it.”

Steve narrows his eyes.  “This isn’t a personal hygiene thing.”

“No,” Tony admits.

“So it’s about sex.”

“Not…exactly.”

If Steve says no, Tony will drop it.  Their sex life is lovely, more than lovely, it’s perfect.  Tony doesn’t need this.  But he’s never been able to resist offering gifts to people he loves.  He doesn’t want to wait to divvy up his fortune after he dies.  It’s selfish, fine, but Tony wants to give things while he’s here to watch his friends be happy.

“Why do you want to, um, shave me?”

 _Because nobody touches you if it’s not for violence, fucking, or medical.  Not even me, not enough._  Tony isn’t going to say that.   _Because you’d never let anyone but me do that to you, not even yourself.  Because I want to see what it does to you._

“You liked the manicure,” Tony says quietly instead.

Steve goes stiff all the way up and down his spine.  Great, Tony’s miscalculated.  He hates when that happens.  There was always a significant chance that this proposal would end with Tony putting his foot right in all of Steve’s masculinity hangups.  Apparently in the time since Tony did Steve’s nails Steve decided it was the kind of thing he wasn’t going to allow.

Tony puts his hands up, palms flat.  He realizes it’s a defensive posture and relaxes them, tips them upward instead like a shrug.  “It’s not important,” he says.  “No big deal, forget I asked.”

“Tony,” Steve says warningly.

“It’s nothing!  Sometimes I have an idea and it’s not good, you should have seen the mark 22 armor, I put in some magnetic cloaking technology that was too close to the fields birds use to navigate and I ran into a goose.  I was picking feathers out of places you can only imagine for a week.”

Steve’s eyebrows are drawn together, thunderous, like he isn’t listening at all to Tony’s babble.

Tony would prefer to be in a different place.  The workshop maybe, the workshop is nice, all his robots are there.  He gets up to leave, sidling past Steve, but Steve puts a hand out to stop him.

“I’m not weak.  Not — not some kind of sissy.”

Tony closes his eyes and rubs his temples.  It’s too early in the morning to be angry about this.  “You have so many issues, Rogers.  You’re plenty man enough for me.  No need to get sexist about it.”

“I want you to do it,” Steve says, like it’s killing him.

That wasn’t what Tony had expected to hear next.  His eyes snap to Steve’s face and, _oh_ , there’s twisted-up desire there, of course there is.  Steve is always ugliest about things he’s afraid of finding inside himself.

“Maybe,” Tony says, very carefully, “you should go sit on the edge of the bathtub.  And then you can let me do something that’s a bit scary, hm?  Give in a little.  Just for me.”

“Right,” Steve rasps.

“Bathtub,” Tony says, eyes still on Steve, waiting for him to balk.  But Steve just pulls the towel from around his waist and hangs it up, utterly unselfconscious — of course, with a body like that, what would be the point — and pads over to the bathtub.

Tony’s tub is sunken into the floor, with only a low ledge around it.  It’s edged in smooth tile, hand-fired ceramic with a beautiful creamy glaze that Tony commissioned himself.  Tony’s favorite thing about it is the built-in heaters, so it’s never chilly.

Steve lowers himself into the empty bathtub and gasps in surprise at the warm porcelain, then relaxes bonelessly into it.

Steve likes things warm.

Tony rolls up his sleeves, cuffing them all the way up to his elbows.  He gathers a razor, a cake of soap (citrus-scented, fresh and bright), and a washcloth.  Then he settles down on the ledge by the tub, laying his things out in front of Steve in a neat line, letting Steve get a look at them.

Steve bends up, reaching for the tap, but Tony plants a hand in the center of his chest and pushes him until he’s sprawled back again.  “Easy, slugger.”

He doesn’t want to fill the tub too far, just up to Steve’s ankles.  While he waits for the water to rise, he runs one hand through Steve’s damp hair, scratching lightly at his scalp.

“So,” Steve says, pressing his head back into Tony’s hand like a satisfied cat, “was the goose okay?”

Tony stares at Steve, flummoxed.

Steve grins, pleased with himself.  “The one you ran into in the mark 22.”

“Oh my God,” Tony laughs.  Steve’s impossible.  He’s impossible and he listens and he’s going to kill Tony one of these days.  “No, it was not.  I was going eight hundred miles an hour.”

“Aw,” Steve says.

Tony digs his fingers into Steve’s hair and shakes him a bit, mock-chiding.  “You’re not worried about me?  I had the fright of my life, almost fell out of the air.”

“You can’t be dropped by a poor little bird.”

“It’s nice of you to think that.”

The water’s about where Tony wants it, so he lets go of Steve to turn it off.  “Give me your knee, darling,” Tony orders.

Steve lifts his leg obligingly, and Tony snugs one hand underneath it, feeling the tendons in the back of Steve’s knee tremble.  “Shhhh,” Tony says.  Steve’s eyes are wide, wide.  Tony reminds himself that if Steve wants this to stop he can break free of any hold Tony could put him in outside of the Rescue suit.  It’s a shivery thrill that he doesn’t.

He starts at Steve’s ankle, running the razor along the direction of Steve’s hair first to take off the length, then back up, leaving bare skin behind.  Steve’s leg hair is fine and blonde, barely visible, but Tony knows shaved legs feel different, so exposed and sensitive it’s almost raw.

Steve’s leg settles, heavier and heavier into Tony’s hand.  When Tony checks on him he’s flushed, eyes half-closed, hands lax against the sides of the tub.  That’s exactly where Tony wanted him.  He did it; it worked.

Tony ducks his head to hide the fierce, possessive smile that splits across his face.  Nobody else gets Steve like this.  Someday Tony will push too far and Steve will leave him, and that’ll hurt, it always hurts, but Tony has a lot of practice living in the sharp-edged pleasure of the now.

“That’s it,” Tony murmurs.  “Let go.”

Steve just hums contentedly.

Tony finishes shaving around Steve’s knee, careful not to nick the skin.  He considers Steve’s thighs for a long moment.  If he shaves them, it’s going to devolve into sex, he knows that, there’s no way he can touch Steve’s thighs for any extended period of time and resist taking things distinctly _south_.

Honestly, Tony would rather not.  He’s riding a low swell of arousal, but it’s not urgent, and he wants to see if this can be an extra space outside of sex, profoundly intimate but not about getting off.

So instead he sets Steve’s foot down gently and rises to switch to the opposite side of the tub.  Steve gives him his other leg without Tony even needing to ask.

It’s quiet, just the two of them.  The sound of Tony wringing out the washcloth is over-loud.  Every shift of Steve’s body is punctuated by the chuckle of moving water.  Tony doesn’t talk any more while he works over Steve, sinking again into the wordless space he usually only finds in the workshop.  He’s good at this, at care, at steady hands, at taking something sharp to a precious thing and perfecting it.

When he’s done he bends to drop a kiss on the dome of Steve’s kneecap.

“How do I look?” Steve asks, not bothering to crane his head to see for himself.

Tony lets his eyes run all the way up and down Steve’s body, slow, savoring all the curves and hard planes of him, sheened lightly with damp.  “Beautiful,” Tony says.

“Yeah?” Steve asks, like that’s what he wanted to hear, needy for more.

“You’re perfect.  Gorgeous.”  Tony swallows, weighing the last thing he wants to say.  “So pretty for me.”

Steve makes an abortive noise that gets stuck in his throat.

“You can get up now.”

“Nah, m’good.”

Tony chuckles at him and pulls gently at his hands.  “C’mon, big guy, nobody can know Captain America is this lazy.”

Steve grumbles but steps out of the tub, following the tug of Tony’s hands.  He stretches while Tony fetches a fresh towel.  Tony kneels to dry off Steve’s legs, which elicits a full-body shiver.  “It feels different, doesn’t it, darling?”

“It’s a lot.” Steve says roughly.  “I’m going to think about this all day.”

“Good,” Tony says, rising to kiss him.  

Steve kisses back, happy and eager, then grinds up against him, bare against Tony’s now-creased slacks.  “No,” Tony says, smacking Steve on the flank.  “Later.  I have things to do.  We both have things to do.”

“You’re a tease,” Steve says, biting Tony’s lip.

“Oh, absolutely, sweetheart.  I make an art of it.  Now, shoo, and I’ll wear your favorite lace tonight.”

“Red?” Steve asks, eyes hungry.

“With _garters_ ,” Tony says, smiling wickedly as Steve kisses him again, a crash of heat and desire.  Then Tony pulls away, savoring the yearning way Steve leans after him.

Tony twinkles his fingers in goodbye before unlocking the bathroom door and padding out into the hallway.  His clothes are wrinkled from all the kneeling, and will need changing before his nine o’clock.  Besides, he promised Steve the _good_ lingerie tonight, and it’ll be delicious to have that under his suit all day.

***

Tony tries to be reasonable.  He really does, he’s going to be restrained, he’s not going to take a mile just because Steve has given him an inch.

He holds out an entire week before he starts going shoe shopping.  Then he controls himself for another week fussing over finding the perfect pair of heels and pretending he doesn’t have Steve’s shoe size in the back of his mind.

Then he has to put in a special order, because the designers he wants don’t carry men’s size twelve.

The box comes after a hard few days playing backup for a spate of Spiderman villain problems.  Steve’s been looking increasingly frazzled, torn between picking up his usual leadership role and ceding to the others on the collaborative team who know more about Spiderman’s problems than he does.

Tony checks for Steve in his bedroom, finds it empty, and wanders into his own room to discover Steve sprawled out on his back on the bed, still in uniform, phone held over his face, flicking pensively through the news.

Steve gives him a halfhearted wave.

“I have a present,” Tony calls, holding up the shoebox.

“Is it the SHIELD intake forms for the scoundrels we put away last night?”

“Honey, I don’t do paperwork, not even for you,” Tony says.  “More fun.  Something pretty.”

“Are you wearing it?” Steve asks, dropping his phone on the bed beside him and propping himself up on his elbows.  The corners of his eyes are tight with tiredness, but his mouth is quirked up, interested in what Tony has to offer.

“I was thinking it’d go nicely on you, actually.”

Steve takes a sharp breath, his eyes momentarily far away and considering.  Tony bites the inside of his cheek, waiting.  Finally Steve levers himself all the way up to sitting and reaches one hand out to snag Tony around his hip and draw him in close.

Tony drops the top of the box onto the ground and pulls the black pumps out of their tissue paper with a rustle and a flourish.

Tony dangles the strappy pumps under Steve’s nose, laughing at his appalled face.  “Those don’t look very practical,” Steve says.

“They’re _Jimmy Choo_.”

“You _know_ I have no idea who that is,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow.

The shoes are sleek and delicate, the kind of thing Steve would never in a thousand years put on himself.  Steve slowly goes pink to the tips of his ears.

“You want me to wear those?” Steve asks eventually, overcoming some internal barrier.

“Very much.”

“Okay.”

First Steve’s boots need to come off.  They’re almost as ridiculous as the pumps, in their own way.  Knee-high red leather combat boots, _really;_ on anyone else it’d be camp as hell.  On Steve it looks powerful.  Tony’s watched Steve kick a man hard enough to break his jaw wearing these boots.

Tony drops to his knees in front of Steve and gets to work on the laces.  Steve’s hands fall into Tony’s hair, petting it this way and that, tugging gently at Tony’s curls and letting them spring back into place.  Then he makes a small hiss of distress, distracting Tony from untying his boots.

“You have a bruise,” Steve says, ghosting his fingers over a sore spot above Tony’s temple, well-hidden by his hair.

Tony leans his cheek against Steve’s knee, closing his eyes for a moment while Steve fusses over him.  “Got rattled around in the armor a bit.  Not a big deal, need a touch more padding in the helmet if we’re going to get regularly thrown around by sewer monsters.”

“I wish you healed faster,” Steve says mournfully.

“Some of us are mere mortals,” Tony says.  “What happened to that road rash all up your thigh?”

“Just pink now,” Steve says.  Tony remembers what it had looked like when Steve was thrown off his motorcycle, like ground beef with bits of asphalt rubbed all through it.  To be honest, Tony doesn’t envy Steve.  He’s glad he doesn’t have to worry so much, knowing Steve can bounce back from so much.

On the other hand, he does wish Steve spent less time running _towards_ explosions.

He gets one boot all the way unlaced and tugs it off over Steve’s heel.  “I have a radical idea — there’s this newfangled thing called a zipper.”

Steve laughs and kicks Tony gently in the ribs with his sock-covered toes.  “Zippers existed in the forties.  Don’t fix what isn’t broken, tech-man.  Laces are more secure.”

Tony smirks up at him and starts in on the other boot.  It takes longer than it should, because Steve touches Tony the whole time; his hands rove over Tony’s shoulders, his neck, rubbing away little spots of tension Tony didn’t even know were there.

Finally he has Steve down to bare skin.  Tony doesn’t have a foot thing, and as far as he can tell neither does Steve, but he gives Steve’s arches good rub anyway.  Steve’s soles are hard and calloused, but Tony is going to sort him out, teach the damn man to take care of himself and pay attention to the parts of his body that the serum doesn’t run on autopilot.

“Hold still, Cinderella,” Tony says, and works the first shoe onto Steve’s foot.  Steve doesn’t move as Tony tugs the straps snug and fastens the tiny buckles.

“They’re so tiny,” Steve says, brow furrowed.

“Up, up,” Tony says, standing and pulling on Steve’s elbow to get him to rise as well.

With the heels on, Steve is every drag show coordinator’s wet dream.  The star of the evening, still dressed like Captain America and towering in four inch stilettos.  Every bond sure is a bullet in your best guy’s gun, for a given value of gun.

Steve’s eyes go wide.  “I’m taller than you in these,” he says.

Tony presses himself up into Steve’s broad chest, spreading both hands over the white star.  He goes up on tip-toes to reach Steve’s mouth and, oh, that’s nice.  There isn’t much height difference between them, unless Tony’s in the suit, in which case the height difference is in the other direction, and they can’t kiss very well like that.  Tony always feels a bit odd in the suit without the helmet, halfway between one thing and another.

Tony lets Steve go and backs away, hungry to see how amazing Steve’s ass looks in heels.  It’s delicious, how Steve’s rigid posture translates into a new set of strong curves.

“Spin, walk, let me see,” Tony says.

Steve takes a tentative step, then gets more confident, clicking across the floor.  “Widow can fight in shoes like this?” he asks, incredulous.

“Mostly if she’s going to blow a cover like that she takes her heels off and hits people with them.”

“Seems reasonable of her.  I feel…delicate,” Steve says, like he’s not sure how to react.

“Delicate on you is quite the rush,” Tony says, wetting his lips.

“Yeah?” Steve asks.  “You aren’t lying?  You don’t think it makes me soft?”

Tony looks Steve up and down, and wonders if he can get Steve to wear the heels with nothing else later.  The uniform is good, but naked would be better.  “It’s all in the contrast, darling.  You’re such an impossible boulder most of the time, a little soft on you just accentuates all the hard.  Salt in your sweet, one could say.”

“Tell me more about how you like it,” Steve says, voice small.

“Looking at you makes me feel like a god,” Tony groans.  “You hold yourself so tight and controlled everywhere else but you let me into all your rawest places.  You look beautiful.  I could suck you off and come in my slacks, frankly, it’s embarrassing.”

Steve swallows and smiles, still a little tentative, but he crosses the room, coming over to where Tony is standing on the rug.

Too late, Tony realizes he should have warned Steve that walking on plush carpeting feels different than hardwood.

Steve wobbles, and Tony reaches out to catch his elbow a little too slowly.  He goes halfway down, ankle twisting.  Tony winces — it hurts when that happens.  Steve is tough, he’ll rally.

But Steve doesn’t get up.  Instead he freezes, staring forward into, oh no, fuck, the mirror, seeing himself.  In heels, halfway to his knees.  Tony’s own knees lock up, and he feels lightheaded.  His heart does a painful lurch in his chest because Steve’s face in the mirror is horrified.  Steve had been uncomfortable this whole time and Tony wasn’t paying attention because he was thinking with his dick, _again_.

Before Tony can move Steve is scrambling up, kicking the shoes off.  The delicate straps have to be unbuckled to take the heels off properly, but Steve yanks until they break away instead, leaving him with narrow bands of leather trailing around his ankles.

Steve flings the shoes away, toward the foot of the bed, and backs himself into a corner.  Tony has a moment of genuine fear that Steve is going to fling himself out through the window.  It wouldn’t be the first time Steve has taken a leaping exit under emotional duress.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Steve says in a broken voice.

Tony’s been too greedy.  He wanted to be the only person in the world to see Captain America in heels and he went too far, he always goes too far, this is why everyone he loves tries to kill him eventually.

“Don’t leave,” Tony says desperately.  “You can say whatever you want to me, shout, call me a pervert, it’s fine, it’s true, this is my fault.  I crossed a line.”

Steve just _looks_ at him, too pale.

“Please,” Tony says, absolutely not above begging.

“I need to sit,” Steve says shakily, and walks over to Tony’s bed.  He sits with one leg tucked up underneath himself, a two-hundred-and-eighty pound ball of misery.

Tony perches, very gingerly, on the side of the bed, leaving as much space between himself and Steve as possible.  As an afterthought, he reaches out a foot and kicks the offending shoes underneath the bed.

“I wouldn’t do that any of that to you,” Steve says quietly.

“It’s okay.  Plenty of people have.”

Steve hugs himself smaller.  “It’s _not_ okay.”

Steve is too good.  That’s the problem — Steve is good and Tony isn’t.  He wishes he was Rescue right now; it’s easier to pretend to be a decent human being in the suit, safe inside his wonderful machine that lets him save people.

“I looked stupid,” Steve says.

“You looked _wonderful_ ,” Tony says.  “That’s the problem; I can’t help it, I’ll always want more.  I’m so incredibly selfish.”

Steve laughs, tight and bleak.  “One time you called me spectacularly lacking in self-awareness, and you know, I’m starting to think the problem is mutual.”

“You didn’t like the shoes.”

“I hated the shoes.  I’m never wearing the shoes again.”

Tony is going to burn the shoes.  He’s going to put them through an industrial shredder and post it to YouTube, _Designer Shoe Destruction Satisfying Video ASMR_ , and then burn the scraps.

“But,” Steve says, apparently not done, “that doesn’t mean — I’m not going to _hurt you_.  God, Tony, what kind of person do you think I am?”

Guilt curls in Tony’s gut.  Now he’s freaked Steve out in two directions.  He really is making a hash of this.

“I need a — maybe a walk, I think,” Steve says.

“Okay.”  Tony’s going to, well, not cry, but maybe after Steve leaves he’ll have a drink of something that’ll burn his throat, for the plausible deniability of it all.

“I’m going to come back,” Steve says, and Steve is always so earnest, of course, Captain America doesn’t fucking lie.

Tony nods, not trusting himself to talk.  Of course Steve would say that.

“ _Tony,_ ” Steve says, so emphatic that Tony’s forced to turn his head as surely as if Steve had a hand on his jaw.  “I’m not running away.  I need a minute to think, that’s it.”

Steve holds his gaze until Tony relaxes a fraction, then stoops to pick up his boots.  “Don’t do anything irrational while I’m gone, okay?”

“I’m always rational,” Tony says bitterly.

Steve shoots Tony a stern look, and then he’s out the door.

***

Steve returns a few hours later, carrying a Duane Reade bag.

In the intervening time Tony has relocated only slightly, sliding from the bed to the low-slung couch by the windowsill.  He’d taken the time to get a whiskey from the bar downstairs. _That’s right — drink something that’ll put hair on your chest, Stark.  That’ll sort you right out._

Tony doesn’t move when Steve taps firmly on the door and opens it without waiting for a response.  Steve, for his part, tosses his plastic bag onto the bed and comes over to where Tony’s sitting.

“So,” Steve says, looking down at Tony like he’s a flight vector or a schedule of guard rotations that needs infiltrating.

“I don’t think I’ve been…forthright,” Steve says carefully.

Here they go — Tony had been wondering how long he’d get before Steve told him he’s straight and done with all of Tony’s gay shit.  The papers won’t love it when Rescue and Captain America break up, that had been such a nice story for them, a real charming all-American romance, technology wedded to the military, hard to get more American than that.  The Avengers won’t love the exes situation either; maybe he’ll go back to playing alone.

“If you’re going to dump me, cherry pie, can I fetch another drink first?” Tony asks, not moving to get up.

“Tony!” Steve says, absolutely scandalized.

_“What?”_

_“_ I _said_ I was coming back, why —“

Tony’s heard that he has trust issues.

Steve frowns — those flight vectors are more complicated than he expected, going to have to pull out all the tactical genius chops for this one — and then nods once, like he’s made up his mind.  Tony knows that face: it’s the one Steve makes when he’s about to grab a helicopter and drag it back to the ground.

Then Steve steals his drink, and, _hey_ , that’s Tony’s, he was not finished with it, thank you very much Captain Kleptomania, and surprises Tony by throwing it all back himself.

Steve puts the glass down on the windowsill.  The only sign that he might be unsteady is the rattly click of glass-on-glass as the rim of the tumbler knocks briefly against the windowpane.

“How’d you guess?” Steve asks.

“I’m sorry?” Tony says, lost.

Steve sits down next to him on the sofa and his laces his hands over one knee.  “How’d you know the things — nails, shaving — all that?”

Tony twists his uncooperative face into a leer.  “It’s not every day I get a chance to turn Captain America into my kinky plaything.”

“You’re the one who said it’s not all about sex.”

Steve has him trapped with that one.  Damn Steve and his damn super-memory.  Tony throws his hands in the air.  

“I wanted something nice for you!  And you’re such a stubborn bastard, it’s not like I could just say _Hey Rogers have you considered taking a break, sleep in once in a while, Christ,_ it had to be something with a little bite to it.  So I took a couple of risks, and I liked it, and I thought _you_ liked it, but I fucked it up.  Somehow.”

Tony makes to push up off the couch, but finds Steve’s hand around his wrist.  He yanks, but Steve won’t let go.  “You fucked it up?” Steve asks.

“ _Obviously,_ ” Tony says, tugging again at his wrist.  This is insulting, he’s a grown man, he blows the heads off aliens for a living, and here Steve is, asking obvious questions.  Tony is a _genius_ , he knows when he’s made a mistake.

Steve frowns, does something complicated that involves kicking out one of Tony’s ankles and pulling him off-balance, and then after a moment of vertigo Tony is on Steve’s lap, draped over Steve’s hard thighs.  Before Tony can react more, Steve reaches out and bundles Tony into his chest.  It isn’t entirely comfortable — there’s a lot of metal under Tony’s shirt — but Steve squeezes close anyway.

“It was nice,” Steve says.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Hey, listen to me!” Steve says, giving Tony a shake.  “You prance around in a bra and nothing else and that’s fine but as soon as it’s me it’s _too much?_ ”

“That’s different,” Tony says.

“Are you _ashamed_ of me?”

“No!”

“Are you ashamed of Rescue?”

Tony pushes away, reflexively snarling.  Steve had been such a dick about that the first time, and Tony thought they were past that, but apparently Tony punching holes in Steve’s manliness means Steve gets to punch back.  “I’m never going to stop being Rescue,” Tony hisses.

“Then why are you being so bizarre about this?” Steve asks, his fingers digging into Tony’s sides.

“I”m not being weird, you’re being weird, this whole situation is weird!”

“Will you just -- !” Steve almost shouts, but then he takes a deep breath, composing himself.  “Will you please trust me.  I need you to trust me.”  Steve sounds _wrecked_ , and Tony made him that way; the least he can do is have a little faith.

“Okay,” Tony says softly.  Steve gathers him close again until Tony can feel the woosh of his lungs.  Against his mind’s judgement, his body starts to relax.  “Okay.”

“I’m sorry I threw a fit about shoes.”

“I’ve had multiple tantrums over shoes,” Tony says, the words muffled by Steve’s chest.  He pats Steve’s broad bicep.  “I’m very particular about footwear, darling.”

“I got you something on the way back from my walk,” Steve says.  He lays a kiss on the top of Tony’s head, then lifts Tony off his lap and pads over to grab the Duane Reade bag he’d tossed onto the bed.  He drops it onto the couch next to Tony, then ducks his head while he waits for Tony to open it.

It’s something small, tiny enough to fit in Tony’s hand, whatever it is.  Tony’s mind flicks through the possibilities — a pack of gum?  Chapstick?  Rolos?  Travel-sized lube?

Tony rustles around in the bag and pulls out Steve’s present.

It’s lipstick.  Red lipstick, with a hint of orange in it, which will definitely clash with Tony’s skin but he _does not care_ , this is the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him.

Tony stares at Steve, dumbstruck.

“I don’t know if I got the color right,” Steve says sheepishly.

“You _bought_ this?” Tony chokes out.  He can’t imagine — Steve at the drug store, looking at the gaudy displays lit up with fluorescent lights, picking up each color and tilting it this way and that, trying to judge which shade would be correct.  Tony hopes his brow was furrowed the way it does in team meetings when he’s not sure if Fury is bullshitting him or not.  Okay, maybe he can imagine a little bit.

Tony uncaps it, rolling up the crisp tip.  He’s always loved new makeup.

It’s a shame the shade isn’t going to compliment Tony’s skin perfectly.  He consoles himself by imagining taking Steve to a proper boutique, swiping tester lipsticks against the back of his hand, close and easy and — unfortunately — in public.  That one will stay a fantasy.  Tony has plenty of colors at home.

Tony makes sure Steve is watching him as he brings the lipstick up to swipe it across his bottom lip.

“No, no,” Steve says.  “On me.  I worked some things out on my walk.”

“Hell of a walk,” Tony gasps.  Steve bought the lipstick for himself, which means it’s more than an apology gift.  It means putting Steve in heels was a mistake but -- maybe -- the rest of it wasn’t.  Tony swallows thickly and looks at Steve’s mouth.

On _Steve_ , this color will be spectacular.  The bright red is a little summery; it’ll pick up all the warm peach in his complexion and make him practically glow.  The slight, petty disappointment over the shade drains away under a rush of feeling, making him almost giddy.

Steve swallows.  “Unless you don’t want to tonight.  It’s been a lot.”

“No, now, I want it now, definitely now.”

Tony leans in to kiss Steve, savoring it.  It’ll be a little tricky to do later without smearing everywhere, and while Tony wants to do that too, it’ll be better if he draws it out.

Steve is easy for it, full of small satisfied sounds.  Tony draws them out of him with his teeth and his hands and his tongue.  Steve didn’t leave.  Steve came back, and on his way home he decided to make the first move this time.  A gesture.  And a request.

Time to take the plunge.

Tony kisses Steve one more time, wet and deep, then reaches up to cup his jaw.

“Are you nervous?” Tony asks, ghosting his thumb back and forth over Steve’s chin.  He’s smooth and clean-shaven, lips barely parted, all his strength gentled under Tony’s hands.

“Yes,” Steve says softly.

“Well, dear-heart, you’re in good hands, so you don’t have to be.”

“Can I — is there anything I can do — to help?”

“No,” Tony says firmly.  “I’m particular, you know.  Controlling.  I have to have my things just _so._ ”

Steve lets out a breath, some unvoiced word Tony can’t decipher.

“Just do what I say.  Open your mouth a little wider.”

Tony drags the lipstick lightly over Steve’s bottom lip, getting a feel for the quality.  It’s not the cheapest drug store brand, but it’s a little greasy and the color is a touch thin.  Tony wonders if it’d be good to pause and rummage around to get lip liner, but, no, immediacy is best.  He’s not breaking this moment.

“Rub your lips together.”  Steve does, tentative.  “Open again, I’m going to neaten you up.”

Tony gets the edges crisp, then realizes he doesn’t have anything to blot with.  There’s another trick for that.  Hell, in for a pound.

“Now, so it doesn’t get on your teeth —“ Tony says, heart thudding, and for some reason this feels more charged than some of the sex they’ve had.  Tony offers Steve his index finger to take into his mouth.  Steve is careful with it, keeping his painted lips clear, letting Tony rest lightly on his tongue.  “Purse your lips around it, yeah, like you’re blowing bubbles, and keep them like that.”

Tony drags his finger back out through the ring of Steve’s mouth, taking the extra lipstick on the insides of Steve’s lips with it.  That’s — it’s a lot.  Tight warmth runs down Tony’s core and up his thighs to settle at the pit of his stomach.  When he meets Steve’s eyes he knows they’re both thinking of the same thing.

Almost on a whim, Tony picks up a little more lipstick on the tip of his finger and swipes it gently across Steve’s cheekbone, rubbing it in lightly until it colors his cheek with a faint blush.

Under his hand Steve is so still and so close.  Tony can see the way the light plays in his eyes, picking up flecks of sparkling almost-silver around his pupils.  Blue eyes aren’t caused by pigments, Tony recalls.  It’s all structural color, photons scattering through a physical scaffold of protein fibers.  The same scatter of light that colors the sky.

Tony dabs at Steve’s other cheek, focusing on blending the color smoothly.  The lipstick has simple optical properties; absorbing most wavelengths, leaving behind just the red.

Now isn’t the time to contemplate the visible light spectrum.

Tony leans back, surveying his finished work.  It’s good.  It’s really good, especially according to his cock, which is getting a bit ahead of itself.

“Mirror?”  Tony asks, touching his pinkie to the corner of Steve’s mouth to even out the color just a touch.

“I don’t want to see myself.  I get to watch you watching me.  That’s better.”

“Is that what went wrong earlier?”

Steve nods, some tension returning to his posture.  He’s going inside his own head, which is the last place Tony wants him.  Tony knows from experience that falling into that hole is a bad idea.

“Sssshhhh,” Tony chides.  “Stop that.  Don’t imagine what you look like, just listen to me tell you how you look.”

“And how’s that?” Steve asks, starting to lick his lips, then aborting the motion when he feels the texture of lipstick on his tongue.

Tony pets through Steve’s hair, brushing it back from his forehead over and over in a soothing pattern.  “You look lovely.  You look like a knife through my heart.”

Steve whines, almost pained.  Tony pets him some more.  “You look like you were painted by Toulouse-Lautrec.”

That makes Steve laugh, warm and comfortable, and pull Tony in close.  Tony preens internally — he’s been catching up on art history to keep up with Steve.  “Like a French prostitute?” Steve asks wryly.

“Like you’re so real you’re about to come unstuck from the canvas,” Tony says.  Then he ducks his head and sucks a kiss onto Steve’s neck.  “Also like a French prostitute.  An expensive one.”

“Mmmmmm,” Steve hums.  “How expensive?”

“Doesn’t matter.  I can afford you.”

“You _are_ very wealthy.”

“I am.”

Tony pulls Steve up off the couch, determined to get him into bed.  Steve rises, but then gets his fingers in Tony’s belt-loops, snugging their hips together, which is unhelpful.  Steve changed out of the uniform at some point between leaving on his walk and coming to find Tony, and he’s just in jeans and a long-sleeved henley.  The shirt is soft but new — like all of Steve’s clothes, it hasn’t had a chance yet to be worn thin.

Tony slides the hem of Steve’s shirt up greedily, marveling at how Steve’s skin is almost downy; he’s so pale and luxurious under his clothes that Tony wants to put him in a glass case and refuse to let anyone else ever touch him.

Steve helps Tony get the henley off, then deftly unbuttons Tony’s shirt and shucks it off his shoulders.

Apparently Steve’s starting to feel impatient, because next he hooks his thumbs into Tony’s waistband and strips Tony bare, underwear and pants all in one go.  Tony gasps and bows into Steve at the sensation of suddenly having his dick free.

“Bed, darling, _bed now,”_ Tony says.

Since Steve curled his lips around Tony’s finger he’s wanted one very specific thing to happen tonight.

He stumbles backwards with Steve until his knees hit the side of the mattress.  Then Steve kneels down, pressing his hands flat against the fronts of Tony’s bare thighs, trapping him. Tony has a split second to think _oh this is going to be better than I imagined_ before Steve is kissing his hipbone, leaving a red mark that isn’t from his teeth.

Close enough to bed.

Steve takes Tony into his mouth, his lips an obscene red stretch, and _no wonder_ Steve has such a thing for lipstick on Tony if it’s always like this.  Steve’s hands on Tony’s thighs keep him pinned, letting Steve set his own pace.

Tony watches, enraptured.  He touches Steve’s face with one hand, dragging his thumb over the corner of Steve’s mouth around him, blurring the cheap pigment, and it’s agonizing.  

Steve gazes up at Tony, blue eyes, red lips, pale skin.  Captain America, always with the patriotic colors.  Tony gasps and shudders, feeling ready to make a very vulgar pledge of allegiance.  He’d rather not lose it entirely while thinking about the fucking flag, which is, to Tony’s horror, a genuine danger. 

Tony taps on Steve’s shoulder, encouraging him back up to kiss him.  The lipstick is a long-lost cause now and Tony wants so badly to taste Steve’s mouth.  Steve is a little tacky, makeup and spit smeared on his chin, and Tony loves it.  Steve Rogers, who folds his dirty laundry and stacks it on his chair, is a wreck, and it’s all for Tony.

They fumble their way backwards onto the bed while still kissing, awkward and breathless.  Steve is pink under the blush.  He’s so beautiful.  Tony doesn’t deserve this but he’s going to drink every last drop of Steve dry while he has him.

Tony kisses Steve in the middle of his perfect chest, then one nipple, then the other.

Then he rises up a little and rolls away from Steve to rummage around in the bedside drawer for lube.  “I’m going to take care of you, okay baby?”

Steve’s knees fall open as an answer.

“Well, pants off first,” Tony says, tossing the lube onto the bed next to Steve’s hips.

Steve hurries to comply, shimmying his jeans over his hips.  Tony sighs at the sight of briefs — he really needs to get Steve better underwear, maybe he can take Steve to the magical bra ladies who do all of his lingerie, see if they can get him something masculine but high-quality, something that a doesn’t look like it came in a five-pack — and then Steve is taking those off too, and Tony’s too distracted to think about shopping.

Tony slicks Steve up, jerking him off slowly enough to make him writhe.  

“So, you going to get on with it and fuck me or what?” Steve says, his dry tone undermined somewhat by how breathless he his.

Tony keeps working him over.  “In good time.”  Steve grumbles at him and flops backwards.  “There you go, pillow princess.”

“I’m going to do this to you, see how you like it,” Steve grouches.

“Looking forward to it,” Tony says, twisting his wrist and appreciating the sound Steve makes in response.

When Steve plants his feet flat on the bed and thrusts full force up into Tony’s hand, Tony figures he’s pushed it far enough and eases one slick finger into him.  All the breath goes out of Steve, just like every time Tony does this for him.

Tony takes his time opening Steve up, so that when he slides into him Steve just sighs contentedly, loose with pleasure.

 It’s good after that, slow and easy.  Tony wants to use his body to apologize to Steve and to thank him.  Steve comes with Tony whispering in his ear, telling him how sweet and perfect he is, a long shuddering orgasm.  When Tony comes after that it’s almost a surprise, smacking him upside the head with pleasure.

***

Later, when they’re a little less spent and a lot less sticky, Steve tucks his head into the crook of Tony’s shoulder and sighs, his breath tickling across Tony’s neck.  “Why did I like that so much?”

Tony reaches over and smooths Steve’s hair.  “Not always a reason for something.”

“You’re the genius engineer — I thought you’d have a theory.”

“And you’re the man of faith; not willing to roll with the will of God here?”  Tony asks, then winces, cursing his uncensored mouth.  They haven’t talked much about the big man in the sky with respect to to the whole gay thing.  “Um.  Nevermind.  Bad time to bring up Christianity.”

Steve pets Tony’s stomach, long soothing motions.  “Let me worry about my own soul.  As far as sins go, I think this is the least of them.”

It takes Tony aback for a moment, the idea that Steve has worse sins wearing on him.  He must make some sort of protest because Steve strokes his skin again, ribs to thigh, his big rough hands warm over Tony’s chilled skin.

“I’ve killed people, Tony,” Steve says quietly.

“Only to save other people.  Only when we had to.”

“They’re still dead,” Steve says, with finality that brooks no argument.

“I do have a theory, actually,” Tony says, pulling the conversation back into safer waters: Steve’s enjoyment of lightly kinky gay sex.  “About why.”

“I knew it,” Steve says, smug.

“You’re a traditionalist,” Tony begins.  “And you think a good man protects people, keeps them safe from, I don’t know, bears.  Bears from the forties.  Nazis.  Nazi bears.”

“I actually fought a Nazi bear.”

“You — really? — no, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

Tony waves a hand in the air, brushing away the bear thing.  He has a point to make.  “So you’re big and manly and great at bear-wrestling and you don’t need anyone to take care of you because you’re a good man and looking after people is _your_ job.  So when you need a little care yourself, maybe I have to jar you out of that role a bit.”

Steve hums, considering.

“Who heals the healer, Steve?  Somebody has to.”

“I don’t need — I’m strong enough on my own.”

Tony rolls his eyes.  “Exactly, see, you’re right back at it again.”

“I’m not!  I’m — damn.”

“I love it when I’m right.”

Steve pinches him on the thigh, because for all his nobility the man’s a sore loser.  Tony flicks Steve’s ear in retaliation, then presses closer, lining up against Steve from shoulder to ankle.  It’s not perfect, and the chest plate Tony still has to wear digs into Steve’s side, but it’s warm.  Steve’s hand leaves Tony’s thigh and strokes back and forth over the metal covering Tony’s chest.  He runs his fingernail along a beveled ridge of metal.  Tony can just barely feel the pressure shifting the armor against his skin.

“You don’t want me to fuss over you when you’re in drag,” Steve says slowly.

“No.”

“So why do you —”  Steve trails off, apparently having used up his quota on being able to say dangerous words like _drag_ or _crossdressing_.

“Well, it gives me a such a delicious tingle, darling.”

“That’s not it,” Steve says, damnably stubborn as always.

Tony sighs, sobering.  “Power.  Control.  I want to be seen on my terms and nobody else’s.  And don’t discount the tingle.  I like that too.”

“I thought it would be the same for both of us.”

Tony scratches the back of his neck, rearranging himself so he doesn’t get a crick in his shoulder from holding Steve.  “There’s more things in heaven and earth, sweetheart.”

“I guess,” Steve says, with minimal grace.

Tony intercepts Steve’s incoming bad mood by kissing him.  Steve huffs one last stubborn breath, then smiles into Tony’s mouth.  Steve props himself up on one elbow and curls over Tony, laying kisses on his cheek and his jaw and his lips.

Tony runs his fingernails up Steve’s sides, then the flats of his palms back down, soothing the gooseflesh that rose in his wake.  “I’m going to pluck your eyebrows next,” Tony says.  “Skin care is lost on you, there aren’t any blemishes to treat.  When was the last time you had a zit?”

“Um,” Steve says.

“You have perfect recall, baby.  Just say never, don’t spare my feelings.  Lingerie — that’s more a thing for on me than on you, isn’t it?”

Steve nods and kisses Tony again, but Tony’s mind is running five steps ahead, thumbing through his mental encyclopedia of femme options.

“Oh, _perfume_ , that’ll drive you wild, mmmm.  I want to smell the scents I picked for you while you fuck me, and then afterward it’ll linger for hours.  I have the best ideas!”

“Tony,” Steve groans, “if you keep this up we’re going to have to go another round.”

“Oh,” Tony says, blinking up at him.  “So you don’t want to hear about my plans for you in nylons, then?”

The full-body shiver that draws out of Steve almost makes Tony’s toes curl with glee.  Steve presses down on Tony more insistently, and Tony decides that winding Steve up is worth being over-sexed and sore in the morning.

With Steve so close, Tony can push the fear that he’ll end up alone again away until it’s hazy and soft.  Tony doesn’t believe in unconditional love any more than he believes in God, but this — this feels almost like it.  This feels like home.

“I have so very many of plans for you in nylons,” Tony whispers against Steve’s ear.  “And I’m going to keep you for long enough to tell you all of them.”

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I'm Not Really a Waitress (The Swan out of Duckling Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17887382) by [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/pseuds/Sineala)




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